This time I picked the Fab 4. Given the popularity of the subject I had to sweat a lot to pick just the best 12 (I wanted to make a top 10 but couldn't leave behind anything else!). I looked through thousands of images and the process was quite difficult. I had to skim and skim and skim again to get to these 12 masterpieces. Sometimes I discarded works aesthetically very valid but poor on the resemblance or excellent ideas poorly made. Anyhow., hope you enjoy!

A number of movie posters, mainly in the twenties, thirties and forties but also later, were crafted by caricature artists. It has long been a tradition in movie poster illustration to render comedy stars as caricatures.

Many skilled caricaturists. have tried themselves with movie posters. One pioneer among the others was Al Hirschfeld, who collaborated for years with the movie industry. To many actors and stars, being drawn by Hirschfeld ranked as one of the true measures of celebrity. Hirschfeld has paved the way for many others artists and illustrators, some of which contributed to make the history of cinema.

II want to share with you a handful of my favorite posters. Please feel free to contribute with your comments. Hope you enjoy!

When Claude Monet, one of the founders of the Impressionist movement, was a teenager he was devoted to caricature portraits. In 1845 the young Claude Oscar Monet moved with his family to Le Havre. He started selling his caricatures for ten or twenty francs to the people in the street. He signed his charcoals “Oscar Monet”.

Hard to believe? Read his own words.

I started selling my portraits. Sizing up my customer, I charged ten or twenty francs a caricature, and it worked like a charm. Within a month my clientele had doubled. Had I gone on like that I’d be a millionaire today. Soon I was looked up to in the town, I was ‘somebody’. In the shop-window of the one and only framemaker who could eke out a livelihood in Le Havre, my caricatures were impudently displayed, five or six abreast, in beaded frames or behind glass like very fine works of art, and when I saw troops of bystanders gazing at them in admiration, pointing at them and crying ‘Why, that’s so-and-so!’, I was just bursting with pride.

— Claude Oscar Monet

Caricature of a Man with a Large Nose - Claude Monet

1855-6c graphite on paper 25 x 15 cm

Caricature of Léon Manchon - Claude Monet

1855-6c charcoal & chalk on paper 61 x 45 cm

Caricature of a man with the snuff box - Claude Monet

1858c

Caricature of Henri Cassinelli, Rufus Croutinelli - Claude Monet

1858c graphite on paper 8 x 13 cm

Caricature of a Scotsman with a Pipe - Claude Monet

Caricature of Philibert Audebrand - Claude Monet

Who would have thought? But looking more closely what is Impressionism if not the attempt to capture an instant , a singular moment in time on the canvas: the impression indeed and not necessarily the reality of nature by blurring the edges and exagerrating lights and colours? So does a caricature portrait that seeks the impression of a person maintaing the resemblance while exaggerating disproportionately some focal elements. Both techniques achieve a realistic effect yet surreal. Monet Impressionism is nothing but a masterful caricature of nature.

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Top 12 Caricatures of the Beatles
February 19, 2018
This time I picked the Fab 4. Given the popularity of the subject I had to sweat a lot to pick just the best 12 (I wanted to make a top 10 but couldn't leave behind anything else!). I looked through thousands of images and the process was quite difficult. I had to skim and skim and skim again to get to these 12 masterpieces. Sometimes I discarded works aesthetically very valid but poor on the resemblance or excellent ideas poorly made. Anyhow., hope you enjoy! www.oddonkey.com/odd-blog/top-12-caricatures-of-the-beatles/2018/2/19